French Canadian Split Pea Soup

For some reason, this soup reminds me of being a very young child.  I must have ate it back then but I don't remember any details.  I don't even remember it in a favorable way.  I don't think it was at home.  Maybe church or something?  Maybe someone fed me Habitant soup from a can?  I always make green split pea soup but today, this popped into my head and  I went out to buy the yellow peas.

It became my dinner.  My recipe was pretty basic and no salt since the smoked pork is full of it.

This was the first time I've used the jowl.  It was cheap. Above was $4.  I chose it because the ham hocks were huge and this was the correct size for my soup, though I do like a bone in the broth.  The hocks were over 2 pounds each though.

• 1 large sweet onion, diced
• 3 cloves of garlic minced
• 1 lb naturally smoked pork jowl (cheek)
• 1 lb dried split yellow peas, rinsed (I forgot to do that though, lol)
• 3 wild organic carrots, quartered lengthwise, then diced
• 2 stalks of celery, sliced
• Few sprigs of fresh thyme, tied with twine
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 large handfuls of organic "deep green blend" (baby kale, chard, spinach)
• 10 cups "Better than Bouillon" low sodium vegetable stock
• 1 tablespoon Trader Joe's no salt "21 Seasoning Salute"
• Fresh cracked pepper, to taste

I put the stock in a dutch oven and brought it a boil.  I put the pork jowl, thyme and bay leaves in and turned it down to a simmer, covered for an hour.

While that was going on, I sauteed the onion and garlic in a little olive oil until soft.  I set aside.  I chopped the carrot and celery and put them in with the finished onions.  

I took out the jowl, removed the skin and fat and chopped it into pieces.  Very, very fatty!  The top half of the cutting board did not go back in the soup.  The bottom was the meat I could pick out.  This went back in the broth (which tasted really, really good and not too salty).  I discarded the bay leaves and thyme.  I added in all the remaining ingredients.

I brought back to a boil, and then covered again and back to a simmer.  It was done an hour later.  I stirred in the greens.

I checked the seasoning and served.

This was fantastic, in my opinion.  Just one of those days when all the ingredients and cooking gods aligned together in harmony.  Adding the greens was different yet perfect.  It added the missing color I wanted without having parsley.  Yummy in the tummy.  This will now stick in my mind as "favorable".  😉